Grace
by georgiebunk29
Summary: True grace is found not in reason but in passion: There's a point where everyone breaks... I'm broken Harry. I'm done. HrH, secondary HrR, HG


**Grace**

_**True grace is found not in reason but in passion.**_

**This is a work inspired by the song _Chasing Cars _by Snow Patrol. A song-fic sorta.**

**All characters of course belong to the inestimable JK. (Even if she did call that poor kid Albus Severus Potter- I mean really!)**

In the end, life is very short: A series of moments, impressions. And every choice, every branching, suddenly becomes a straight path leading to this.

_She is alone, terrified in the dark. And then a hand reaches out, pale in the flickering light... A face that isn't right. But a clasp is offered. A grip, anchoring reality... Her desperate shuddering sobs and a breaking inside...But also arms- warm and strong- and a body that supports. Someone- something to cling to. An embrace that holds her pieces together...So much confusion, fear eating everything...But also him, holding on..._

_They sit up late at night... And because now they share something- something the others never had to deal with- somehow, in the darkness, drowsy by the fire, their deepest truths come out... there's a new bond here... something passes so deep that the surface barely ripples... there's an undertow to these conversations that sucks her- sucks him- in..._

The world goes very still in this moment. As though- after all the fury, the chaos- we are given a moment to see things clearly, to take a breath. For the first time.

_An arm around her shoulders, a familiar weight, and a body pressed against her side, tall and solid. A scent that she knows intimately. Their laughter in the air. A couple walk ahead: Dark; bright; lithe. They hold hands and their steps are perfectly in tune...But then he turns: Green eyes meet hers and there is something new that she doesn't understand..._

_She has butterflies in her stomach. And she knows she shouldn't. Not for him...But he watches her and his fingers brush hers when he passes the salt and his hugs last just a moment too long. And now as he sits at the next desk he is watching her between sentences and her stomach is nervous and she doesn't know why but her lips keep curving up of their own volition..._

Everything is defined in this stillness: the sky is more blue than it has ever been before and each cobble underfoot... And now, that green light is so bright it burns up the world.

_She gasps as his hands move on her... he feeds at her mouth, kissing her as though she were air and he were drowning... but she is drowning and he is the only thing to cling to as her limbs melt... "we have to-" but words are lost... there is only his body and hers and feelings that set them alight until thought disappears as well and they are swallowed up..._

_She tries to concentrate on the words being spoken, but her mind is consumed by him- his darkened eyes, his gasped words, his lips and hands moving on her are all she can think about... she looks down at her notes and has no idea what they mean... her head is full of him- of them- of what has happened and she can't think... _

Things happen slowly in this space. It takes her forever to fall. As the flash fades into her skin she watches the world tilt to the side and blur across her vision.

_In the bath she submerges her whole body and looks up toward the ceiling through the rippling water... it glows with the sheen of lamplight and the beams are refracted, reflected until she sees not her own bathroom but a golden, hazy landscape... when she surfaces gasping and blinking, the ceiling tiles come back into focus... But as she moves through her days- through her friends- she cannot steady her perception and her emotions swing between glowing joy in their relationship, jelousy when she sees him with Ginny and a crushing guilt whenever she thinks closely about what they are doing behind their friends' backs..._

_She realises she loves him quite late in the year- well after the first snow-fall... The realisation comes with the knowledge that it is not the physical relationship alone which she craves but the emotional bond, the shared view of the world, the little intimacies and memories they have built over the years. And she thinks perhaps, that in matters of the heart she is not so wise as they would suppose- she really should have known from the start- all that time ago- where this slow slide would take her..._

The crunch when she lands should be audible around the world- it feels as if the heavens have fallen with her.

_When she ends it, her nose and eyes leak for days and she can barely speak through the blockage in her throat. She tells Ron it's the flue and hides in her room when he comes home from work and she can't understand how he doesn't know when its so obvious her heart is broken... she can't understand how the world can carry on as if nothing has changed... She wonders what he is doing... whether he is hiding tears from Ginny... she rips herself to pieces inside and there is a weight that crushes her... but she is numb..._

She thinks sooner or later there should be pain. That it should sear every nerve ending. But in the end there is just a great exhaustion, an inability to keep going.

"_There's a point where everyone breaks- I'm broken Harry. I'm done"... She slides a hand around his neck. Leans in and presses her brow to the hollow of his throat. Tired- just so drained from the weight of it, from endless months of seperation and guilt. "I can't be with him any more. I keep thinking about you. When I'm not in your arms I'm not real, I can't breathe properly." His arms tighten but he still doesn't say anything... "Harry?" She pulls back to search his expression. "I'm saying I'm leaving him...we can be together... we have to be together..." Why doesn't he smile?_

Slowly, in a bitter parody of speed, people come toward her. She can see their mouths moving and the desperate expressions on their faces but from here it all just looks faintly ridiculous.

_She watches them. All these people with hair the same colour as Ginny. All these people with hair the colour of Ron. And Remus leaning against the hearth... They are all responsible. They don't even realise she is cracking apart again and all because of this family with their happiness and their togetherness that grates until she wants to scream at them- damage them... and he is there also. Sitting in the chair by his pregnant fiancée... She left him for this family who are all she has now- all they have- but it isn't enough... If she can cope with losing everything, then why can't he?_

She can see him as he runs toward her, see him through a gap in the group around her. And there is an expression on his face that is familiar, that wrenches her heart.

"_I love you!... I fucking love you!" He watches her and the expression on his face looks as though his heart is breaking but he doesn't reach for her. "Damn you!!" Slowly, he shakes his head: No. His eyes plead with her but he doesn't say anything. She knows what he's thinking: What's the point of repeating it all? "I know I should let you go. I know that's what's noble and brave and selfless. But I can't. I've tried. God knows I've tried... She lost it Harry." But he won't leave her. Them. She can see it in his face... And inside of her, something gives up..._

Together they move her onto her back, straighten her unfeeling limbs. One bright, the other dark. She realises this is a place where life is reduced to symbols, that there is a pattern to be discerned.

"_I do." She says the words to Ron, but at the last moment her eyes flick to the side to meet his. His face is set in lines of stone. Hypocrite. She recalls their argument, but Ron will never know that she isn't in love with him. She will give him everything she is and make him happy. And Harry will watch it all. She hopes he suffers as much as she does. Why should she tread gently on a love that has almost broken her? It was his choice after all._

Sound and time return with a rush. There is a great wash of anguish across her perception. Sobs and cries, screams and gasps. Ron stares weeping down at her. She curls her lips slightly for him. It seems to break through the shock and he cries out and buries his face against her breast, hands clutching. She watches him for a moment then moves her heavy gaze to look at the other man who is leaning over her. Dark hair falls across his brow but she can see his anguished eyes staring into hers, connected- always connected. "It was weak, you're still with us." She leaves her lips curved but knows he can read the expression in her own eyes. "Damn it! Don't do this! There's no need to-

Poor Harry: He thinks this is still about him. But then- everything always was.

She softens her gaze, her lips- trying to speak without words. He has to know that she would stay if she could. That she realises now how petty it all was. He has to know she wishes him well: with Ginny; with all he has to do that they haven't done together. He has to know that here none of it matters. She hopes he will forgive her.

He has to know that she has just forgiven him.

He inhales sharply and she can hear the pain it that breath like a scream... but she also feels her heart stutter. She doesn't remember when she last drew a breath, and now her heart is stopping finally... years after it was due to. Ron's sobs get louder but still she looks at Harry- drinking him in. There is a last loud, desperate thump of her pulse. To keep someone on this side of death for a lifetime- how is it she only now realises the strength of a heart?

And then, silence inside of her... Harry is still searching desperately in her eyes and in his own green ones she can see herself reflected, see herself as she has always looked to him, see everything she was and is and could have been...

But the final darkness creeps across her vision until even that most cherished sight is gone and the feel of cobbles and clutching hands and mortal weight are lost... the sounds of despair, of suffering... of life in all its desperation and intensity fade away into the silence of her emptied being... and a lifetime's worth of thought and pain and hope- a person called Hermione- is gone...

_Those three words are said too much, they're not enough..._

_If I lay here- if I just lay here- would you lie with me and just forget the world?_


End file.
